/r/USerious?

If you’re considering a home improvement project like crown molding, you need two tools. First, an angle finder like this ToolSmart to ensure your edges come out hella flush. Second, the appropriate Reddit threads to guide you.

Finding the correct angle finder shouldn’t be too complicated, and maybe you already have by landing on this page. The Bluetooth functionality of this one lets you take multiple measurements without reaching for pencil and paper. Pretty nifty, but not imperative.

Choosing the right Reddit thread is another matter entirely. You might find yourself drawn to the flashy /r/DIY subreddit, with its pretty pictures impressive upvote counts. And sure, you’ll find some advice (most of it from long ago in Internet years) that may help you, but for the most part you’ll find naught but photo galleries showing the steps of the process without providing actionable information. These galleries can be fun to peruse while wasting time, providing a dopamine drip to some strange part of the brain, but they provide little actionable information for completing your own project.

The humble, understated r/HomeImprovement, on the other hand, may lack the fancy pictures and frenetic community of /r/DIY, but that don’t bother it none. Its plainspoken handyperson wisdom provides more help than all the gimcrack before/after galleries in the world. Take this advice from /u/SafetyMan35:

Crown molding is relatively easy, but you have to pay attention as the method you cut inside and outside corners is different, and you need to cut the molding while it is at an angle (between the miter box side and bottom).

That one sentence explains both the problem and solution of the entire endeavor while providing words of encouragement. Thanks, SafetyMan!

Tiling is another project that requires accurate measurement of angles, and hoo boy does /r/HomeImprovement have you covered there. A mysterious, since-deleted user posted this handy tiling guide, providing Vila-esque nuggets of wisdom such as:

Grout is not waterproof! I don’t know where anybody got this idea, but I’ve heard it quite a few times. Even on a “dry” surface, it needs to be sealed.

Here’s a good graph illustrating flexural strength of different types of tile.

Now we know: (a) “Flexural strength” is a thing and (b) it matters. Thanks again, /r/HomeImprovement!

Maybe it’s our love of the underdog - our willingness to eat at the restaurant that’s never crowded. Something about the plain-dealing scrappiness of /r/HomeImprovement has endeared us to it. We won’t fault you if you choose an angle finder without Bluetooth, or if you prefer /r/DIY to /r/HomeImprovement. It takes all kinds, we suppose.